What is a Safety-Engineered Syringe?

In short: The World Health Organization (WHO) uses terminology such as “smart” or safety engineered syringes, but understanding the differences between syringe types is not easy for the uninitiated person. We clarify some of these issues and provide the facts as stated by OSHA, FDA and other organisations.

This is the third in a series of blog posts on this topic. The previous two posts are:

“Smart” syringes: Safety engineered

The use of the term “smart” seems confusing to many of us. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes this as follows:

The New Smart Syringes
The surest way to protect against unsafe injections is to use devices for injections that have been engineered so they cannot be re-used and don’t lead to accidental needle stick injuries among health workers.

According to the above, we prefer to use the term safety-engineered syringes instead of “smart” syringes. We can segment the global safety-engineered syringes market according to three therapeutic categories:

auto-disable syringes,

active safety syringes, and

passive safety syringes.

We discuss these three product categories in more detail below. If you would like a general overview, check out:

WHO wants exclusive use of the new safety engineered syringes by 2020

These syringes are specifically designed for single use. They have some type of mechanism embedded that blocks the barrel once used, thereby assuring single-use of the needle.

Auto-disable syringes are the most popular syringes used for vaccination purposes.

Bottom line: Although manufacturers claim auto-disable devices can be retracted from within the patient, two problems arise:

it takes considerable pressure on the plunger push button to activate the retraction mechanism, and

it is difficult to do so without pushing the needle further forward into the flesh, which is not desirable for the patient.

For these reasons, in practice the auto-disable syringes currently on the market must first be withdrawn from the patient prior to activating the spring or vacuum mechanism. This raises two issues as outlined under item 3 below.

2. Active safety syringes

These syringes require the health worker to activate the safety mechanism.

Active safety syringes are the most common type of safety-engineered syringes used across all healthcare sectors.

Bottom line: These syringes and blood collection devices are withdrawn from the patient prior to activating the safety feature. There is a risk that liquid may splatter or spill before safety mechanism can be activated by the health worker (see also below for more details).